An Overview of Free and Discounted Transit Fare Programs in California: What Did COVID Change?

Research Team: Jean-Daniel Saphores (lead) and Farzana Khatun

UC Campus(es): UC Irvine

Problem Statement: Transit ridership, which was already on the decline before COVID-19, dropped dramatically during the pandemic. Statewide, monthly transit ridership, which was approximately 100 million in February 2019 reached only 60 million in June 2022 (after cratering to 20 million in June 2020). The woes of transit are by no means unique to California: Statistics Canada, for example, estimates that urban transit ridership was only three quarters of its pre-pandemic level in January 2023. Free and discounted fare transit pass programs are among the measures that transit agencies around California can implement to build up ridership. An example of successful application is LA Metro's GoPass program for K-14 students: launched in the fall of 2021, which made up 16.5% of LA Metro bus boardings in the fall of 2022. However, recent detailed analysis of successful free and discounted fare transit pass programs (including target population, impact on ridership, impact on fiscal health, sustainability) are still missing, and so is an online dashboard summarizing current free and reduced transit fare programs in California. To the best of our knowledge, no study has yet examined how free and discounted fare transit passes could help transit agencies recover from their pandemic slump.

Project Description: In this study, we will first survey California transit agencies to gather data on their free and discounted fare transit pass programs and inquire about the impact of COVID-19 on these programs. In 2019, we explored the effect of free and reduced pass programs on the transit ridership of 59 transit agencies in California, so this study will be an extension of our 2019 work. In particular, we will investigate whether the programs described by our respondents in 2019 are still running (we will also try to survey additional transit agencies with the help of the California Transit Association), understand how successful they were and how they may have changed during the pandemic, and inquire if new free or discounted fare transit pass programs were created as a way to get out of the pandemic-induced ridership slump. We will also select free or discounted fare transit pass programs from five different transit agencies to conduct an in-depth analysis (including understanding the purposes for initiating these programs, eligibility criteria, funding sources, financial sustainability, and impact on ridership.) Finally, to promote public transportation through fare-based incentives and create a collaborative platform for all California transit agencies, we will develop an online dashboard that will display key information on about all the free and discounted fare transit pass programs for which we have information, in addition to our case studies. Our results will help understand how fare-based incentive programs were used by transit before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Status: In Progress

Budget: $100,000